9. Planet of the Giants

Season two starts off with a story I don't think I've seen before, the poorly named Planet of the Giants - which is actually Earth. Some sort of TARDIS malfunction has shrunk the crew to the size of one inch tall.

"Honey, I shrunk the TARDIS crew!"

Ian proves to be the master of terrible hiding spots for a one inch man by hiding in a match box and a brief case -- with the result that he gets carried off and separated from other crew members at various times preventing them from returning to the TARDIS.

Barbara also manages to prove dim witted as after she has her hands all over some poison that is killing things left and right she doesn't tell anyone that she's covered in the stuff. When she finds out it's lethal she whines and gets depressed but doesn't tell anyone. Why in the world wouldn't she tell someone so they could maybe wash her hands? I don't know.

That brings me to what I guess is the main story line. You see it's not just trying to find Ian and dodging cats that fill the story's three episodes. There is a very mean and nasty businessman who is making some insecticide. The problem is that it will basically screw everything up...but he would rather kill the scientist who discovered this, sell the chemical and ruin the Earth and make lots of money. In the process mini-Barbara gets it on her and the crew decide to foil evil Businessman's plans.

In the end however the crazy killer businessman is found out by an old woman and a police man after he tried to impersonate the murdered scientist on the phone. The crew escapes to the TARDIS and the Doctor manages to restore them to full size. The TARDIS begins to materialize at its next destination...

As I mentioned at the top I hadn't seen this episode and that is something I'll be saying a lot for this season. I have seen the Romans, which is coming up later in the season, but not sure about the rest of them. This story was a disappointment. I even had to try watching it multiple times as I fell asleep twice and grew bored other times. I'm looking forward to the next episode -- the Dalek Invasion of Earth!

Rating: 3/10 (failure)